Loneliness freely chosen at some point in our lives can act not only as a balm, but also as an effective therapy to connect with ourselves; sometimes it is also a way to establish a healthy distance from what is not good for us, from which it is opaque, disturbing or changing our inner peace.
We talk about what in psychology is often defined as “functional loneliness”, a concept that forms something that will be familiar to many: the need to move away from a harmful or exhausting environment to find and therefore recover the psychological. well-being itself.
“There is no worse loneliness than not being well with yourself. – Mark Twain-
With this, we are not talking about uns selected loneliness, isolation caused by bad social relationships, or sadness associated with a lack of meaningful companionship. In this case, there is a fundamental therapeutic factor, and it is to be able to recompose aspects as basic as self-esteem, priorities or recover that clean, intimate and private space that has been taken from us.
As Pearl Buck, a writer and Nobel prize in literature, once said, there are fountains of great beauty in each of us that need to be renewed from time to time to continue to feel alive. achieved in these phases of chosen loneliness, existential and accommodating loneliness.
For most of us, loneliness is scary. In fact, imagine walking through a deserted mall on a Saturday afternoon and your brain immediately sends a warning sign. We feel fear and anguish. This is due to a basic mechanism, an instinct that reminds us that we cannot survive in solitude, human beings are social by nature and that is why they have been able to evolve as a species: living in groups.
However, in our daily lives, we find facts even scarier than a customerless mall. As research shows, nearly 60% of married people feel lonely. 70% of teens, despite a lot of friends, feel lonely and misunderstood. All this forces us to remember that loneliness has nothing to do with the number of people who are part of our lives, but with the emotional quality that is established with such connections.
On the other hand, one thing that often happens is that we validate and perpetuate deficient dynamics in time that produce a frank misfortune Do we feel alone, misunderstood and burned?in our workplaces, but we stay with them because “we have to live for something. “We go out with our usual friends because they’re actually the ‘whole life’. How can I leave them now? Not only that, there are those who maintain their romantic relationship even if they feel alone, because they fear even more the emptiness of having no one by their side.
All these examples shape a dysfunctional loneliness where we often come to create a real defense mechanism so as not to see reality, to think that everything is well, that we are loved, loved and that others appreciate everything we do. It’s like drowning, and yet it pokes its head out to ask for more water.
Unhappiness is not cured with more suffering, no one deserves to be accompanied alone.
Sometimes spending some time in an oppressive, uncomfortable and selfish environment means that the person is always focused on the outside with the idea of meeting all the needs of others, incubating the hope that sooner or later he will satisfy his own. However, this rule of three is not always met.
“I’m not afraid of loneliness, some people tend to enjoy it. -Charlotte Bronte-
That is when there is no choice but to perceive reality itself and seek a solution, the loneliness chosen, the healthy distance and a time dedicated to oneself is always healthy, necessary and expressive, that is not why we are talking about starting a period of isolation, in fact, it is not about running away either, it is a very simple thing: the main thing is to set aside what is not in our interest.
Taking time for yourself is a recipe that never fails, it means finding intimacy and spaces, remembering who we were and thinking about who we want to be from now on, this can take a few weeks or months. Each has its own rhythm and times that must be accepted and respected.
The freely chosen loneliness in a specific period of our life not only cures, not only recomposes many of our destroyed pieces, but is also a way of learning to build suitable personal filters, those filters by which tomorrow we will only let in those who do us good, that adapt to our emotional frequencies, to the privileged corners of our hearts.